Hong Kong-based carrier Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd could face major disruptions over its Christmas period if flight attendants launch a threatened strike to protest a new medical insurance plan.
Cathay cabin crew will hold a demonstration on Monday to protest the new policy, which requires all staff to pay a standard fee for doctor and specialist consultations, union general secretary T.K. Lee said yesterday.
"We will have to see what happens after that as to whether we will take industrial action," Lee said. "Our members are very unhappy with the co-payment scheme."
The previous policy offered no co-payments for doctors' visits.
Calling in sick enmasse and refusing to serve passengers on planes were some of the measures union members had discussed at a meeting on Monday, he said. The union covers about 4,900 staff.
If the agitation goes ahead, it would be the first time in nearly 15 years that Cathay cabin crew have gone on strike.
The new medical insurance policy, to take effect Jan. 1, requires junior staff to pay HK$30 (US$3.8) to see a doctor and HK$50 to see a specialist. Senior staff pay HK$50 for a consultation with the doctor, and HK$100 for a specialist.
Take-home pay for an entry-level cabin crew member is about HK$15,000 a month.
Lee said the union had sent a letter to Cathay management yesterday urging them to hold talks, but had not yet heard back.
Hong Kong is a key regional hub for Cathay, with more than 100 flights daily to Asia, the US and Europe.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS